
#Starsector game alpha centauri manual#
For example, the back of this game's manual has a short essay on the dynamics of planet building and solar system formation, which offers a justification of why the "Planet" at Alpha Centauri is the way it is.

Alpha Centauri has the scientific plausibility you'd expect from Firaxis, designers known for historical games like Gettysburg and Railroad Tycoon. What you really end up with is a shapeless mish-mash of cliches, just so much sci fi gibberish.īut Brian Reynolds certainly did his homework. Firaxis lavished attention on the background of Alpha Centauri itself took great care in fleshing out a plot and the protagonists and the setting, making a believable and so a more immersive and compelling game.įar too many games simply assume that by drawing landscape, tossing in some laser guns and big-eared aliens, you somehow end up with authentic science fiction.

In other words, Alpha Centauri is far more than just Civilization III, and while it was made by the same team that did Civilization I and II and shares all of those games' conventions and designs, it goes far enough beyond the old ones that I'm not likely to go back.įor starters, the setting's changed: in Alpha Centauri you colonize an unknown, alien planet rather than explore the broad sweep of Earth history. Its design has been aged and distilled by worried, loving cellarers the result is gaming bliss, mead for the connoisseur's glass. Alpha Centauri is the work of a master vintner it's been carefully crafted, each ingredient examined, every process mulled over.
